Re: [Harp-L] Harmonica player with Django



Max Geldray was from Holland, and moved to the UK with the rise of Hitler (some of his relatives - he was Jewish - died in the Nazi death camps). For much of the 1950s he had a regular weekly radio gig on one of the most popular comedy programs of the era, the Goon Show, which featured Peter Sellers (later a big international movie star), Spike Milligan, and Harry Secombe doing a whole avalanche of voice impressions and characters in zany plots - they were a direct influence on the Monty Python crew, who grew up listening to the Goons. Each show featured musical interludes alternating Max with a singer named Ray Ellington (who was from the west Indies and not related to the dapper Mr. E). 


The shows were performed live and many, perhaps most, were recorded. Perhaps a few dozen of the shows were released on LP or other media (and some turn up on the net), so that if you look hard you can find a number of Max Geldray performances, always light, breezy and uptemp, and very well played and catchy. To my knowledge he never made an independent recording (or if he did it's very obscure).

In later years Geldray got into the clothing business, and eventually retired to Palms Springs.

WInslow

 
Winslow Yerxa
Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
Harmonica instructor, The Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance
Resident expert, bluesharmonica.com
Columnist, harmonicasessions.com


________________________________
From: David Naiditch <davidnaiditch@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: martin oldsberg <martinoldsberg@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, September 5, 2011 9:28 AM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Harmonica player with Django

Martin,

The harmonica player was Max Geldray (1916 - 2004).  




On Sep 5, 2011, at 9:05 AM, martin oldsberg wrote:

> This link goes to the website of a program on Swedish public radio, a story about one of numerous Django Reinhardt festivals. 
>   The caption below the picture says: "Duke Ellington on a visit to France, Django Reinhardt on guitar."
>  
> Apart from the always dapper Mr Ellington I believe you can see Django´s brother Joseph to the right. But below him there´s a guy playing the harmonica.
>  The only harmonica player that I connect to Django is Larry Adler, and this clearly is not him. 
>  Did Django -- or Duke E, for that matter -- gig with a harmonica player? Can anybody identify this guy?
>  
> http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=1012&artikel=4676002
>  
> Cheers,
> Martin


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